Speed Reads
Crisis in Iraq
Obama: No troops to Iraq
President Obama on Friday made his first public remarks on the deteriorating security situation in Iraq, asserting that the U.S. would not be sending troops to the country to prop up the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. He said that he was considering a range of options to assist Maliki's government, but that "ultimately it's up to the Iraqis as a sovereign nation to solve their problems."
The Guardian reported today that the White House is "urgently" considering air strikes on targets in Syria and Iraq to check the alarming expansion of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, an extremist Sunni Muslim group that has taken control of a wide swathe of land stretching from Syria to Iraq.